My grail diary journey

[TheBadger1979]

I set out on my grail diary journey a few years ago and made a good start but never finished it for one reason or another. I've finally got round to picking it up again and am at the stage where I'm just about to sew the signatures together after cutting them all out today, this is my progress so far, hopefully I'll be able to post some regular updates now I'm back in the swing of it.

 

[FrankL76]

Very nicely done. What font did you use?

 

[TheBadger1979]

Very nicely done. What font did you use?

So these are some files I downloaded many years ago from somewhere and I've tidied the writing up a bit and made it sharper and added some colour where needed.

 

[TheBadger1979]

Few update photos on progress, I've printed a few test inserts out which seem to have worked well. My next step for the diary is to have a go at ageing the leather a bit so it doesn't look as clean and new.

 

[Andre771]

Looks good! Is that paper weathered or did you get it like that?

 

[TheBadger1979]

Looks good! Is that paper weathered or did you get it like that?

The paper is ivory coloured paper, probably a bit too thick at 120gsm, if I did it again I'd go for something around the 100gsm mark. I aged it by putting cold black tea in a spray bottle and spraying it onto the paper then quickly dried it using a hair dryer, worked really well.

 

[beowulf573]

What weight and type of leather did you use? It looks amazing, can't wait to start mine.

 

[TheBadger1979]

What weight and type of leather did you use? It looks amazing, can't wait to start mine.

So this is something else I would change if I did it again, it's just over 1mm thick, I've seen some leather at about 0.7mm, I'd definitely go for the thinnest leather you can get hold of

 

[TheBadger1979]

I'm a bit further on with my diary, today's job was to sort, print and cut to size the next batch of inserts.

 

[TheBadger1979]

So I've finally finished the last of my grail diary inserts so I'm all ready to start putting them into the diary now, it's been a long time coming but I'm finally near the end of my journey.

 

[Andre771]

So I've finally finished the last of my grail diary inserts so I'm all ready to start putting them into the diary now, it's been a long time coming but I'm finally near the end of my journey.

These look great! I see you also have the mysterious map. Well done

 

[Indiana Holt]

Awesome diary.. btw. Andre, Its not the true Mystery map. Its looks like an old mock up made by me years ago. Looks good tho.

 

[Andre771]

Awesome diary.. btw. Andre, Its not the true Mystery map. Its looks like an old mock up made by me years ago. Looks good tho.

Haha hence the mystery..........................................I've seen only a partial of the original, someone must have the complete image?

 

[Indiana Holt]

Yes, its out there.

 

[TheBadger1979]

Yeah I still haven't found a 100% accurate picture of the hand drawn map so went with this one, if I ever find it I will probably change mine but happy with this for now I think.

 

[kevin926]

Looking great,,
Where did you get the files for the pages

 

[TheBadger1979]

They are from loads of different sources, the X marks the spot scrap, hand drawn map and 3 MWNN are hand drawn apart from the text on the "Wolfram" side which I found online somewhere years ago along with some of the other pages/inserts. The gold/blue tickets I got from a forum, possibly this one, years ago and the same with the camel pack, banknotes, letters, August etc sheets, telegram, insurance and telegram envelopes and some of the maps, I've just had to tweak some of them to get them right. The grail tablet Rubbing I bought on etsy a few years ago but might have a go at making my own one day.

 

[SixFootJedi]

Fantastic work! Well done, it is looking great!

 

[kevin926]

They are from loads of different sources, the X marks the spot scrap, hand drawn map and 3 MWNN are hand drawn apart from the text on the "Wolfram" side which I found online somewhere years ago along with some of the other pages/inserts. The gold/blue tickets I got from a forum, possibly this one, years ago and the same with the camel pack, banknotes, letters, August etc sheets, telegram, insurance and telegram envelopes and some of the maps, I've just had to tweak some of them to get them right. The grail tablet Rubbing I bought on etsy a few years ago but might have a go at making my own one day.

Where did you get your pages from

 

[TheBadger1979]

The pages in the diary itself I got from a website a few years but unfortunately I can't remember which one and I haven't been able to find them again since. There were of decent quality but I had to clean them up a bit and sharpen them up before I could use them.